


he was pointing at the moon, but i was looking at his hand.

by HaleyElizabeth



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaleyElizabeth/pseuds/HaleyElizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He shifted from one heel to the other, fist wrapped tightly around the strap of his backpack. Waiting. Watching. Part of him- the paranoid part that he liked to keep buried somewhere underneath the surface, way, way underneath the surface- wondered if maybe he was gonna be stood up.</p><p>Things had been tense between them since Jackson had moved. Danny had been confused and angry at the lack of <i>any</i> explanation from his best friend. Jackson had been caught up in his own world, lost in something that he wasn’t willing to share.</p><p>Maybe this last ditch effort to save their friendship was a bust. Maybe Danny was gonna end up stranded at a hotel airport, until he could reschedule a flight back to-</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>Danny closed his eyes and grinned. Let out a breath of relief, and shook his head just a little. And then he turned around, opened his eyes, and just grinned more.</p><p>“Hey.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	he was pointing at the moon, but i was looking at his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rarepair Repop. Title from Anyway by Richard Siken.

It wasn’t the first time that Danny had been to London.

Far from it, actually. His family was into vacationing, and not to the Grand Canyon or DisneyLand. He’d seen all the sights already; Big Ben, Buckingham Palace... One Direction. There was no longer any _adventurous_ appeal left to the city.

But this was different. This felt really… really different.

He shifted from one heel to the other, fist wrapped tightly around the strap of his backpack. Waiting. Watching. Part of him- the paranoid part that he liked to keep buried somewhere underneath the surface, way, way underneath the surface- wondered if maybe he was gonna be stood up.

Things had been tensed between them since Jackson had moved. Danny had been confused and angry at the lack of _any_ explanation from his best friend. Jackson had been caught up in his own world, lost in something that he wasn’t willing to share.

Maybe this last ditch effort to save their friendship was a bust. Maybe Danny was gonna end up stranded at a hotel airport, until he could reschedule a flight back to-

“Hey.”

Danny closed his eyes and grinned. Let out a breath of relief, and shook his head just a little. And then he turned around, opened his eyes, and just grinned more.

“Hey.”

All in all, Jackson didn’t look that much different. A few more freckles dotting his nose. Hair a little darker. He seemed to have gained some muscle, maybe gotten an inch taller.

The biggest difference was his smile.

When he smiled at Danny, it was something pure and enigmatic that he couldn’t remember seeing on Jackson’s face since they were children.

“C’mere.”

Jackson reached for him, slipped his fingers behind the straps of his backpack, and tugged him in close. Danny wasn’t expecting to get pulled into his chest, to get plastered against him, face practically tipped into his neck.

He was tense, confused, for a good long moment, before he just sighed, and let himself relax into Jackson, wrapping his arms around his shoulders, and hugging him back.

When they finally pulled apart, Jackson was still smiling. “Come on, let’s get outta here.”

**********

Jackson’s place wasn’t as lavish as Danny had been expecting- because everything was always posh when it came to the Whittemores- but it wasn’t exactly a shithole, either. A loft in one of the nicer parts of the city, with a view overlooking Hyde Park. One bedroom, a huge bathroom, a kitchen, a living room- complete, of course, with a seventy inch smart tv.

He didn’t really get why Jackson had his own apartment. From what he’d been _told_ , Jackson had come to London to attend boarding school, because his parents thought he was getting in too much trouble in Beacon Hills. (Understandable. Considering he’d fucking _died._ ) But then, Jackson Whittemore was probably too good for dormitory living.

If he was even going to boarding school. God only knew what was really happening here.

“Drop your bag anywhere. I’ll make us something to eat, you’ve gotta be starving, right?”

“Yeah, sure.” Danny tossed his bag onto the couch and trailed after Jackson into the chrome and marble kitchen, sitting down at the island and crossing his arms.

Jackson, who Danny had definitely never seen _cook_ in his entire life, set about taking bell peppers, ground beef, and rice out of the refrigerator and pantry, setting up preparing some sort of recipe that he’d clearly had planned out before now. Apparently a year of independence can change a kid.

Man. Definitely a man. Jackson didn’t even hold himself like he was seventeen anymore.

Then, maybe dying and coming back to life and going to live on another continent with no notice can do that to you.

“So, what’s been going on, man? You still seeing that guy, uh, what’s his name… Ian?”

Okay. Okay, _that_ sounded decidedly more like the Jackson he knew, who definitely knew Ethan’s name and was apparently being a douchey prick about it. That somehow made Danny feel more at ease and he smirked, rolling his eyes.

“No. Him and his brother took off. Guess he went to Arizona or some shit.”

“What, you can’t be Skype boyfriends?”

“I don’t really believe in long distance relationships.”

“Mmm.” Jackson nodded absentmindedly and threw some diced peppers into a frying pan.

**********

Having “a movie” with someone made it sound like you were a couple. Like having “a song,” there was something intimate about acknowledging that a piece of media reflected intimately on your relationship with another person.

Still, if they were going to have a movie, Danny figured the fact that it was Con Air.

They’d watched the movie over and over again as kids, both of them acting like little mini-Nic Cages, running around and pretending to shoot things- and then both of them getting all droopy and possibly more ridiculous when he was reunited with his daughter, in the end.

Jackson put it on after dinner, and they sat together on the couch, watching it. Occasionally, their knees would brush, and Danny’s eyes would flick towards Jackson’s face. Sometimes their eyes would meet, and Jackson would smile, and Danny would find himself smiling back without meaning or really wanting to.

He was still annoyed at Jackson. He was here to get answers, God dammit, and Jackson smiling at him like that, with his new, brilliant smile, it just… it was uncalled for, really.

When the movie over, he yawned, throwing his head back a little, and stretching his arms over his head.

“Jet lag?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Jackson disappeared for a few minutes, and when he returned he was carrying a couple of pillows and a huge blanket, that he dropped onto the couch next to Danny. “You can take my bed, if you want it.”

“This is cool, thanks.”

“Okay.”

They stared at each other for what felt like an impossibly long time, before Jackson finally just smiled, and turned to go.

Before he was all the way down the hall, Danny cleared his throat, and called out, “We have shit to talk about, Jackson.”

He didn’t turn to see his friend’s reaction, but he did hear a still in his footsteps. After another pause, Jackson replied, softly, “I know. Tomorrow, we will.”

**********

Breakfast passed in a relative quiet, nothing but the occasional clinking of silverware and chewing. Danny kept glancing up at Jackson through his eyelashes, trying to look at him without _really_ looking at him, but Jackson seemed to be back in his own head again.

Danny picked up the plates when they were done and carried them to the sink. Jackson came up behind him, so quick and quiet that Danny didn’t notice until their hips were brushing, and the other boy was shooing him away, turning on the water so he could do them himself.

The place where their bodies had touched felt warm and unfamiliar and Danny was _mad_ about it, more than anything else.

Fuck Jackson for going off to London and… growing up. And getting _hotter._

“So.” He posed, finally, leaning a hip into the counter. He raised an eyebrow. “That talk?”

Jackson looked up at him, and then back down at his hands, and the plate he was holding between his fingers.

Just when Danny thought that he wasn’t going to say anything, he did.

“Believe it or not… I think this all started with Scott McCall…”

**********

Danny spent the majority of the day away from the loft.

Away from Jackson.

He revisited the same old tourist spots that had held no interest for him twenty-four hours ago, and made a few phone calls back home.

One to Lydia Martin.

“Did you know?”

He hadn’t meant for his tone to come off as accusatory as it did, but there it was. Silence met his question, and so he repeated himself. “Did you know, Lyds? About Jackson? About Ethan and Aiden?”

On the other end of the phone, Lydia sighed. He could hear shuffling around and what sounded like a door closing. “Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Since just before he left for London.”

Danny thought that maybe, if he were there with her, he would have strangled her.

It took a lot for him to lose his cool.

But werewolves? Fucking _werewolves_?

“I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends, Danny. Sometimes friends protect each other by _not_ telling each other everything.”

“Coming from someone who knew what was going on.”

Her tone went icy, that Lydia Martin voice that made his balls wanna shrivel up and take refuge inside his body. “Don’t you think for one tiny second that you have any idea what I’ve gone through, Danny Mahealani.”

He didn’t respond, just sighed, and put a hand over his face.

When she spoke again, her tone was softened. Only slightly, but softened, nonetheless. “This wasn’t just Jackson’s secret, or Ethan’s secret, or my secret. There are a lot of people involved. A lot of people that have to trust you to keep it for them. You should be _flattered_ that he loves you enough to tell you. Not wandering around London calling me to yell at me.”

“I’m not- how do you know that I’m wandering around London?”

“Um.”

“Lydia?”

“He was worried about you.”

Danny hung up on her, and spent the rest of the afternoon looking over his shoulder. If he was being followed, he never saw anyone.

*********

Jackson was on the patio when Danny finally decided to return to the loft, slipping through the front door. He didn’t turn to look at him, but Danny figured he had to have heard him. Didn’t werewolves come with super hearing?

Werewolves. Super hearing. Christ.

He didn’t go straight outside. Took off his shoes, and his jacket. Grabbed a beer from the fridge, and then a second one. Checked his Facebook and his Twitter from his phone.

When he finally did slip between the glass doors and into the chilled night air, Jackson glanced up at him for only the briefest moment, before he looked back at the moon. Danny sat down next to him and put the beers on the table between them, before turning his eyes up to the moon, himself.

Somewhere between a waning gibbous and a third quarter. He wondered if that had been planned, him not coming during a week with a full moon.

Of course it had been.

“So, how do you control it?” He finally asked, tearing the cap from his drink and draining a sip. “How do you… not become a raging ball of fur once a month?”

Jackson cut a look at him and snorted, rolling his eyes. He snatched the second beer and leaned back in his chair, taking a gulp of his own before he answered.

“Derek says you find something meaningful to remind you to stay human.”

“And what’s that?”

“It’s different for everybody. Hate, love, family, anger, sex.”

“What is it for you, then?”

The pause that followed seemed to stretch out forever. Danny knew why. Jackson didn’t do vulnerability- he never had. And some things don’t change. No matter how much the rest does.

And it was so quiet, when it came, that he nearly missed it.

“Hope.”

Danny raised an eyebrow and glanced over at him. “Hope for what?”

Jackson was still staring at the moon, mouth twisted down into a confused little frown, eyebrows knitted too close together. He wanted to wipe that look off his damn face, because it made him look… small, somehow. “Hope for the future. Hope for me. Hope for my friends. Hope that one day shit’ll make sense, and it won’t be so fucking…”

He stammered over his breath, and spread his palms out in front of himself, like he wasn’t quite sure how to put it into words.

But Danny nodded. He understood.

**********

Things were tense between them, still. But not, maybe, in the way that they had been when Danny had first found out. It wasn’t a thick, pervasive, ‘what if he tries to kill me’ sort of tension, but rather the uncomfortable reality that they had spent a year apart, a year in which secrets had been kept, huge ones, and where they went from here was still entirely unclear.

Days went by, filled with too long silences and imploring looks that came without answers. Danny’s last day in London came and went without event.

But he couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t that the couch was uncomfortable, because far be it for a Whittemore to indulge in anything that wasn’t top quality. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t tired, because he was. It was late. He needed to be up early for his flight.

And still, he couldn’t sleep.

Jackson was awake and waiting for him when he opened the door to his best friend’s bedroom and slipped inside.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Danny fidgeted on the spot, feeling increasingly vulnerable underneath the scrutiny of those blue eyes. Not human eyes, glowing blue, like nothing else he had ever seen before them.

Jackson’s gaze swept from his face to his shoulders, across his chest and down further, over bare legs. When he finally looked back into his eyes, Danny was shuddering, from fear, or cold, or something else entirely, he was unsure.

“C’mere.”

Jackson pushed back the comforter and Danny came without question.

When they curled into each other, the past year didn’t fall away, like one might assume. No, it lingered, it curled up with them, and instead of forgetting about it, Danny let it in.

He slotted his hips to Jackson’s and marveled at the way that their muscles fit together differently now than they had before, at all those sleepovers, all those times they’d curled together, innocent and childish. Now Jackson made him feel small, in a way that Danny wasn’t used to, and wasn’t sure he liked.

But liked or not, it made his skin feel flushed and his body ache for something he wasn’t ready to name.

Jackson made a noise too similar to a growl to make him entirely comfortable, and his fingers shook when he dipped them into the skin of his waist. He felt his best friend’s face gliding against his shoulder, felt his mouth running across his collarbone, hot like a brand, and he closed his eyes against the onslaught of _something_ burning in him.

Jackson made the noise again, and this time he slipped his fingers through Danny’s hair. Nails massaged into his scalp, sharp nails, too sharp, and when Danny realized that they were claws raking at him, his stomach clenched.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

He had never felt more shaken. He had never slept more soundly.

**********

“So what happens next year? After you graduate? Are you coming home?”

The airport bustled around them, groups of people pushing past to run here or there, but Danny barely paid them any attention. Jackson had his fingers wrapped into the straps of his backpack, and they were standing close, close enough that he could talk over the thrum of yelling from every direction.

“Probably.”

It wasn’t a promise, but it was something. Jackson didn’t make promises if he could help it. They made him uncomfortable, and Danny knew that.

Still, a probably was more than a maybe. Danny grinned at him. Jackson smiled back, that new smile, and it made his damn knees go weak.

They stared for another moment, before Jackson’s fingers slipped free of his straps and he swatted at his arm. “Go on. You’re gonna miss your flight.”

Danny nodded, but he didn’t move. Just kept staring at him.

Jackson raised an eyebrow. “Your parents will probably be annoyed if I kidnap-”

Danny wrapped his fingers around Jackson’s throat and tugged him down to slot their mouths together.

Jackson seemed surprised for all of about three seconds, before he moaned into it, his hands slipping down to curl around Danny’s waist. His tongue swept across the seal of Danny’s lips, and he opened his mouth for him happily, shivering at the sensation when Jackson explored the roof of his mouth.

He bit his lip when he pulled back from the kiss, for emphasis, and he thought he saw a flash of that inhuman blue in Jackson’s eyes.

“I thought you didn’t believe in long distance relationships.” He breathed into the air between them.

Danny shrugged.

“A week ago I didn’t believe in werewolves.”

Jackson’s laughter carried throughout the terminal.


End file.
